What headsails do you carry for cruising?

Both are made of approximately 10-ounce Dacron. The Genoa is fairly high cut, which permits good visibility and easy sheeting. The working jib is what I would call a medium clew height which gives us a bit more sail area down low, while still permitting reasonable visibility.

By far, the working jib sees the most use and more or less lives on the headstay. The Genoa is ostensibly a backup sail, used pretty much only when we are in a non-spinnaker race in very light air. When we are wearing the working jib, once the wind gets abaft the beam, we will usually go to a spinnaker if the apparent wind is less than 15 knots or so.

There are two things that I might do differently if I was buying a new set of headsails. First, if the budget permitted, I would consider a sailcloth with a Spectra weave that would lighten up the overall weight of the sails and improve their long-term performance. Second, rather than two symmetrical spinnakers, I would probably have one very large asymmetrical kite, and a “Code Zero” sail, a light reacher on a removable furler.